March 1, 2009

Questar #2 [1978]

Ditko writes and draws a 6-page story for this issue of William G. Wilson Jr.'s SF/fantasy magazine, this time debuting "The Destruction Agent". It's a frantic and dense little story about the attempt of Spago, an agent of the dictator Zenek, trying to get the security codes to the planet Atn, using his traitors he has on the inside. Young Captain Brash is fired from the security unit for voicing suspicion that there's a traitor and gets some experimental devices from Dr. Veg that enable him to follow Spago to his base and then defeat Zenek's armada.

This is a good example of Ditko's science fiction work of the era (and with some obvious similarities to SHADE, which he was likely still working on or had just wrapped up when he did this). Not a lot of time available for characterization or explanations, some interesting twists and some great artwork (which is reproduced much better here than in his colour work at this time). Check out some of the detail in those panels, the ships in the space armada, the feeling of depth in the last two panels. Really prime Ditko stuff.